South Carolina Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Ban Minors From Getting Sex Change Surgery, Hormone Therapy

Jeff Younger, left, and seven-year-old James Younger. In a highly publicized legal battle, Jeff Younger, who opposes the transition of James, won joint custody on Oct. 24. (courtesy of the website SaveJames.com)

A newly proposed bill in South Carolina aims to ban anyone under 18 from getting sex-change surgery and also make it illegal for doctors to prescribe hormones to children.

Republican state Rep. Stewart Jones said he filed the bill in response to the case of 7-year-old James Younger in Texas.

The boy’s mother claims that he should become a girl and accused her ex-husband of child abuse for not treating the boy as a girl. Video footage showed the boy when he was 3 talking about how his mother had told him he was a girl. The mother said she wanted to have James undergo sex-change surgery in the future.

James’s father, Jeff Younger, won joint custody of James and his twin brother, Jude, in October, with the case drawing nationwide attention.

“My son doesn’t really know this conflict is going on,“ Younger told The Epoch Times before the decision, which included a gag order. ”James is trying to basically make his parents love him, and he’s doing whatever it takes for his parents to love him. He dresses as a girl because he wants his mother to love him. Jude is confronted with an ethical challenge as a young man. When he goes to his mother’s home, he is lying. He is struggling with how he is supposed to lie.”

Jones, the South Carolina lawmaker, told The Post and Courier that the push for transgender rights “has almost been weaponized.” The proposed law “is to protect children,” he added.

The law wouldn’t affect adults, Jones noted.

A person holds a transgender pride flag in a file photograph. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)

“For a child, it’s a whole different matter,” Jones said. “Somebody under 18, they can’t buy cigarettes and alcohol, and so they shouldn’t be able to have a sex change.”

If the bill, which has no co-sponsors, passes and a doctor provides a banned procedure, the doctor would be reviewed by the state’s Board of Medical Examiners and could lose their license.

The bill is one of several that have been introduced recently across the nation. Legislation banning sex-change surgeries and other associated treatments for minors has been introduced in Alaska, Illinois, and Texas.

A Georgia lawmaker said that she is also working on a bill that would make it a felony to perform sex-reassignment surgery on minor children, including vasectomy, castration, mastectomy, and other varieties of genital mutilation.

Georgia state Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, a Republican, told The Epoch Times her legislation would protect children from being subjected to irreversible procedures when they are young, but wouldn’t affect physicians working with adults who seek a sex change. Georgia law currently allows minors to receive surgery and prescription medicine if a parent consents.

“We’re talking about children that can’t get a tattoo or smoke a cigar or a cigarette in the state of Georgia, but can be castrated and get sterilized,” she said. “The removal of otherwise healthy or non-diseased body parts from minor children would also be prohibited.”